


Charms of Concealment

by stereolightning (phalaenopsis)



Series: The R/T Fics [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Picnics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1591574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a picnic, this thing they're doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charms of Concealment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the rt_morelove Springfest.

“They're not lupins, they're larkspurs,” said Remus, spreading out the picnic blanket in the dappled shade of the tree.

Around them, the meadow hummed with bees, and songbirds dove in and out of the tall grass in pursuit of their insect quarry. A clump of fluffy sheep grazed several hundred yards away. This was what counted for afternoon traffic in this part of Wiltshire.

“Lupins are not as pretty,” he said.

“Pfft. That's subjective,” said Tonks. “Anyway, they're both tall and purple, and I like them. And I know a certain large black dog who would kill to be out here playing in them.”

“Maybe you should pick some for him.”

Remus neatened the edges of the blanket while Tonks set about casting a suite of protective and anti-detection spells at the perimeter. She would have liked for this sunlit day to be a proper picnic, a romantic date, but it was more of a working lunch, and these days Remus was acting more like a colleague than a potential paramour. He took out a borrowed pair of omnioculars and began adjusting the lenses.

When she had completed the last wand movements of the last spell, she sat down on the picnic blanket and drew the surveillance notes they had been drafting out of the pocket of her robes.

“So. If they're meeting here tonight, we should be able to follow their movements from here,” she said. “Unless they come in the back way. In which case - ”

“In which case this will be a pointless enterprise,” he sighed.

This was odd. Tonks knew that Remus had his low moments, but he usually smiled through it and treated everyone with kindness even through the worst of it. 

Determined to keep things cheerful, she took out a rock cake from the small basket she had brought along, unwrapped it, and broke it in half. She offered one half to Remus.

“Here, have a bite,” she said. “My Dad made them. He's not a bad cook at all. Bit heavy-handed with the orange peel, but they are tasty.”

“Thank you, Tonks, but I'm perfectly all right.”

Okay, then. Perhaps this was not hunger-induced irritability. Perhaps there was something he wasn't telling her, something that was eating at him, though he wasn't giving any hints as to what it was. Also, since when did he call her Tonks, and not Nymphadora? 

“Have I done something to upset you?” she asked.

He looked at her, opened his mouth slightly, and then closed it again.

“I have done, haven't I?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry. I'm being ridiculous. Of course you haven't done anything.”

Though his voice was warm and gentle again, she did not believe him.

“Really, everything is all right," he said, injecting his words with not-quite-genuine cheer. "Is it too late for me to change my mind about the cake?”

“No,” she said.

She handed him the other half.

“Thank you, Tonks.”

 _Tonks_ , again, though. He usually gloried in saying Nymphadora to see if he could get away with it. Oh, he didn't crow about it, but she knew it tickled him to push that boundary with her, and now he had stopped. The game was over. The joke had died.

They ate in silence. 

“There,” he said at last. His hand sprung to the omnioculars. He held them up to his face, his whole body tensed like a spring, focused completely on the house across the meadow.

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Do you think they spotted us coming in?”

“No. I don't think so. I don't think they know we're here. Perhaps we should double the auditory charms, just as a precaution.”

She obliged him with several flicks of her wand.

“Thank you, Dora.”

He hadn't looked at her when he said it. He had been occupied. He had let something slip. 

“Do you mind taking notes for a little while? We can switch off every hour if you like,” he said.

“I've had an idea about that, in fact,” she said. 

She rummaged through the basket until she found an acid green quill with a tip so pointy that it looked like the sting of an exotic, venomous creature. 

“Quick Quotes Quill. They take a bit of poetic license with details, but they're not useless. I've stripped off the Sensationalus and Melodramaticus charms, mostly, so I think it might actually take straight-forward notes for us.”

She unfurled a length of parchment and tapped the quill with her wand.

Remus put down the omnioculars and his eyes met hers. “That's very clever of you.”

Tonks looked down at the parchment. The quill was already scribbling away.

_'That's very clever of you,' said the mild-mannered werewolf, carefully concealing his emotions under a façade of Platonic affection._

“Oh, thanks,” she said. 

She looked at the parchment again.

_'Oh, thanks,' said Nymphadora Tonks, disguising notes of surprise and longing in her voice with considerably less skill than she used to disguise her natural brown hair color._

Well.

This was going to be an interesting evening.


End file.
